LESSONS FROM THE WEB

Sometimes it is possible to venture into the unknown and go nowhere at all. In May 2001, Nova Southeastern University Law Center commenced two law school courses entirely on the Internet for the first time. Armed with enthusiasm, tutelage from experienced online professionals and the promise of technology support, some traditional law teachers put down their chalk and embarked on an on-line journey. The authors, all of whom taught sections of one of the courses, Criminal Procedure, took notes, met weekly and made numerous observations along the way. This essay describes some of the memorable aspects of our collective experience - both positive and negative - and offers a brief critique for other prospective on-line travelers.

Our goal in teaching this online class was to present a relatively traditional Criminal Procedure course in an untraditional medium. The overall focus remained on Supreme Court cases and the intent was to engage in critical and nuanced legal analysis, much like a classroom-based course. Students were expected to learn the material much as they did in a traditional classroom setting, including taking a final examination containing three hour-long "issue spotter" essay questions and some multiple choice type test items as well.

With approximately twenty students assigned to each instructor, all sections followed the same general curriculum.⁽¹⁾ The curriculum included a syllabus with assigned readings, weekly discussion problems creating a threaded asynchronous triangulating dialogue among the students and the teacher, weekly quizzes, and regular synchronous chats between teacher and students, which were less structured and focused than the discussion threads.

The entire course revolved around computer screens, with no face-to-face interaction between teachers and students. At the beginning of the course, the students watched a video file introduction and overview of the course prepared by two of the teachers. The substance of the course was broken into thirty segments, called modules. Approximately five modules were completed each week in a program that lasted six weeks. A seventh week of the course was devoted entirely to examination preparation and review. An audio file introduction, again played on the computer, preceded each of the modules. The audio files consisted of two professors discussing the highlights and contours of the next module.

Some Lessons Learned

Lesson #1: Technological Competence Should Be a Course Prerequisite

While it may be obvious, technology loomed large in every aspect of the on-line AAMPLE®⁽²⁾ program, let alone the delivery of the individual courses. The on-line program used WebCT+® software⁽³⁾ as the course management solution. Even with a WebCT Help desk to assist students with technology access and user issues, the software still posed challenges to the neophyte user. Words such as "downloading" and "uploading" assumed great significance. For example, Examsoft software could be downloaded by the students for their quizzes; the students then had to upload their answers when the quizzes concluded.

Many of the frustrations, miscommunications, errors and omissions surrounding the program were related to its technology. There were weekly downloading and uploading mishaps, first frustrating earnest and diligent students, and then their teachers as well. Troubleshooting the technology was sometimes as common as the legal problem solving. Since both teachers and students were new to the system, these problems were to be expected. Yet the technology received more than its fair share of the blame. Even those errors and miscommunications not related to the technology seemed to be its responsibility as well.

The lesson learned from the onslaught of technology was a significant one for both faculty and students. Specifically, to achieve course proficiency, it was essential to take the time to learn how to use the software before the course begins, not while the course progressed. Students with poor computer skills often were placed at a competitive disadvantage and left a successful outcome at risk. In other words, computer literacy, particularly with basic Windows operations and navigation skills, was neither optional nor insignificant.⁽⁴⁾

Lesson #2: Learn To Navigate the (Bermuda) Teaching Triangle: Discussion Boards, Chats and Email

When teaching a class within the confines of a four-walled classroom, most law faculty rely on traditional tools such as lecturing, the Socratic method, and problems or assignments to communicate their material to students. But when those walls disappear, so do the traditional methods.

Instead, teachers are left to construct surrogate communication tools, including lecture type reconstruction through pre-recorded audio or video file lectures, such as PowerPoint slides and more interactive and dialogical methods of learning such as discussion boards, e-mail, and chat rooms.

As we learned almost immediately, steering an on-line ship was quite different from managing a "live" class. Creating and maintaining quality interaction with students was a constant challenge. The asynchronicity of pre-recorded material, available to students at their convenience, promoted individuated learning over uniformity. If a teacher preferred a student body in lockstep, this course was not for them. It was left for the discussion threads, email and regular chats to ensure the existence of a coherent and structured learning process.

1. Discussion Boards and Threads

We quickly discovered that one of the most powerful and interesting online learning tools was the discussion board, through which the professor and students could asynchronously post messages, questions or answers intended to be read by all involved. A discussion board topic, called a "thread," was initiated by a problem or question posted by the teacher, seeking student responses (and further replies by the teachers). The threads permitted students and the teacher to respond to each other asynchronously, fostering an evolution in legal analysis, practice in advocacy skills and a multiplicity of viewpoints.⁽⁵⁾ The discussion threads provided a goldmine of information, indicating what students understood, what they did not and what lay in between those two polarities. The threads had the extra benefit of offering students practice in issue spotting, since it was left for them to distinguish the salient issues from tangents, either those imagined or those discussed by students in their responses.

In some ways, the discussion thread mechanism advanced a professor's pedagogical goals in a law school class better than face-to-face dialogue in the classroom itself, since a discussion thread builds in deliberative and considered responses, while minimizing reactive "shooting from the hip" that sometimes occurs in class when students raise their hands immediately after a question in class has been posed. Further, discussion threads were more likely to encompass a variety of student viewpoints, since numerous students were encouraged to post and there is no equivalent time constraint on responding to questions. Perhaps even more significant, the posts are preserved for students' subsequent contemplation and review.

Of course, we also learned quickly that these advantages disappear if the students do not actually read the existing posted responses or think critically about them. Alternatively, it was just as problematic if students had read the existing posts with the intent of freeloading on the exposed information and thought processes of the posting students. To encourage individualized thought, some teachers provided specific feedback only after all of the student submissions had been posted. An alternative approach was to create time limits for posting, after which the discussion board would be shut down, or "locked," to encourage timely responses and determine who had participated in a timely manner.

2. Online Chats

The on-line chats were conducted in "chat" rooms similar to those found through commercial services available to the public - a window with a space for typing messages, which when typed and sent, would appear in a larger window, alongside current contributions to the discussion. A list of those persons who had entered the chat room also was displayed. Like discussion threads, chat room discussions were permanently preserved in the system. These permanent transcripts could be retrieved and posted for all students to review, particularly for those students who were unable to participate.

While students sometimes referred to these chats as "class," there was no real equivalency. Chat room attendance was not mandatory and participation levels varied considerably, with little, if any, predictors as to who might show up or participate on a particular day. Chats generally occurred in the evening hours to accommodate those students working full-time while taking the program. Some professors offered these chats on fixed weekly schedules, and others only by notice or need. The difficulty of a week's modules, the proximity of the chat to the final exam, and the clarity of a week's cases seemed to have less of an effect on attendance than the frequency of the chats, the time of day, and the interest of the students. Student personalities were often central to the nature and success of the chats.

At times, the chats more often resembled one-on-one tutoring than a law school classroom. This lack of global focus at times created frustration with the chats, particularly as questions ranged from basic clarification points to sophisticated legal analysis, depending on the students logged on during that session. The frustrations extended to the teachers as well, who found that questions answered for the students in the chat often were raised again by students who did not participate in the chat. In addition, a pressing problem that created considerable faculty consternation involved "lurkers," students who signed in but were not actively involved or even paying attention to the chat.

Despite their inefficiency, however, students and professors seemed to enjoy the chats. This little bit of "class" time offered the chance to assign a personality and three-dimensions to the faceless names on the class roll.

During chats, the medium affected the message. If a chat was dominated by slow typists, it could be equated with slow motion. If there were a number of fast typists, the quickest usually determined the chat's direction - pending the teacher's decision whether to respond to the question. For slower typists, the chat might have careened in a variety of directions by the time any specific question was sent. Without the ability to have students "raise their hands" to be recognized, the result was often a "stew" of tangled thoughts, where one topic piled up on another like a club sandwich. Participants were left to unscramble one thread from another. The teachers soon learned to set the agenda and to act as "page turners," changing the agenda when appropriate.

3. E-mail

On-line e-mail was an integral and useful teaching tool. The program's on-line e-mail system was a closed loop within the course server. This meant that all of the e-mail was related to the course and did not first require sorting by relevance. Using a course server further permitted the sorting of e-mail by module, class or week, and also permitted preservation for subsequent review.

Even with this advantage of separation, we still had to learn how best to use the system, in particular, when to use email to reach the entire class for substantive or administrative matters and when to use it as a private one-on-one tool. Of course, that lesson was also important for the students. At times, students clogged the email pathways with irrelevancy, redundancy and verbosity. Teachers had to use diplomacy and other skills to help train students to use the email tool properly.

The e-mail system served as a secure space within which to communicate confidentially. The range of confidential communications extended from the personal to the substantive and served as the functional equivalent of office hours.

Lesson #3: Watch Out for "Lurkers"

In traditional law school classes there is almost always a group of back bencher students. These students have elected to assume a disengaged presence in the classroom, but can be, and often are, brought involuntarily back into the classroom discussion by their teachers. In an online educational milieu, this group of students become almost a transparent, ethereal part of the course. They leave little trace of their presence and contribute almost nothing to the educational experience of other students and probably gain little from the parts they observe. The reason we came to call them lurkers was that they were students we knew were there, but who, unlike in a regular class, could successfully ignore our entreaties to become engaged in the educational experience. Lurkers came in three versions: pure, fractional, and intermittent.

A pure lurker was only an ephemeral presence in the course. The sole reason you knew the student was still part of the course was that the student tracking system showed the student logged in each week to peek at the course, but he or she never posted comments in the threaded discussion problem, participated in on-line real time chat discussions,⁽⁶⁾ took the quizzes, or otherwise communicated by email with anyone in the class. Despite the irritation most professors feel when a student assumes such an apathetic status, these students impose little cost on the class. They are not disruptive, require no additional efforts or special accommodations - beyond sending some initial e-mails asking "where are you?" and urging the student to become involved in the course activities.

A fractional lurker participated in the course during the first week or perhaps two, but after that period moved to a status that looked very much like a pure lurker. These students often started off doing quite well in the course, but for some reason were unable to sustain the effort beyond one or two weeks.

An intermittent lurker participates in the course activities on an irregular schedule. These students usually did not participate in all of the assignments for any week, but rather, in a random fashion, showed up in an online real time chat, posted a comment in a threaded discussion, or took a quiz. Intermittent lurkers are the most disruptive type of lurker because they do interject comments, questions, and other matters into the course. Their postings are usually off point because they have missed preceding material and discussions that are part of the background on which the current discussion thread is building. Because their postings are so off point, teachers must often spend considerable time addressing them to prevent others from being led down the wrong path.

Why do students assume the lurker status? There are three factors that may explain this phenomenon: culture; educational experience; and course design. One reason for "lurkers" may be cultural. A variety of institutions and media foster the illusion that passively looking at a screen⁽⁷⁾ is a form of active participation. These same sources also often give the illusion that anything can be mastered in a relatively brief period of time.⁽⁸⁾ Many students in the online classes were shocked to discover that online legal education requires more discipline and focus than traditional classroom education, despite repeated warnings. Thus, the course ran counter to the cultural expectations given the delivery mechanism we are using.

Another reason for the "lurkers" might be a lack of educational discipline the students brought to the course. Many, if not all, of the students were not accustomed to a learning environment that required sustained written contributions based on significant reading assignments. It required a degree of discipline and focus on their part that few, if any, had been trained by earlier educational experiences to give. This factor may have been particularly important in explaining why a student becomes a fractional "lurker."

Part of the reason for the "lurkers" may be the structure of the online course. At the beginning, we decided to allow students to have autonomy over participation decisions. Our reasons were several. First, the course was constructed as such a sufficiently rigorous experience that we thought no one could successfully complete it without being fully involved. Second, we thought there was an overt incentive to participate, in order to maximize the chances for success. Third, many of the students were adults who had held full-time jobs and understood the rigors and responsibilities those jobs demanded. Lastly, while we firmly understood it was not in the students' best interest to lurk, it was nonetheless the students' own choice.

Lesson #4: Faculty Teamwork Matters

The opportunity for team teaching in the online course was extraordinary and perhaps was its most advantageous quality from a faculty member's perspective. The four teachers had weekly meetings to discuss the objectives of the course and their daily implementation. These meetings became similar to coaches discussing strategies and tactics and benefitted from all minds working toward the same ends. Several of the teachers sat together for section chats and gave their sections the same questions in the threaded discussions. The synergy had a very positive effect on the teachers' experience in the course and on the learning environment.

Lesson #5: Feedback Is Integral to Teaching

If feedback is virtually non-existent during a basic, first-year substantive course, it transforms into a central, omnipotent learning tool in an on-line class. In light of the lack of face-to-face communication and the absence of classes where students can observe the give-and-take between other students and the teacher, the various mechanisms for feedback utilized in this on-line program took on much greater significance. Feedback mechanisms were plentiful, ranging from email questions, to threaded discussion groups, to the weekly quizzes, which consisted of both essay and multiple choice questions. The optional quizzes provided detailed analysis for the students.

Feedback is significant because it arises as a follow-up to a student's performance. Thus, it responds to active learning exercises, which in and of themselves can be pedagogically useful to students. Further, feedback is predicated on some reflection about the student's performance. Such reflection may not occur otherwise, particularly if the student believes that she "knows it," and therefore need not examine the performance for ways to improve. Finally, feedback brings conscious attention to what otherwise may be habitual behaviors.

Significantly, the majority of the in-course feedback served as a diagnostic tool for the students. Instead of being merely a tool for ranking and ordering, the quizzes, for example, were intended to inform students about their progress and the areas in which they could improve. Thus, the quizzes served as a mirror for the students, a reflective device, upon which they could observe how they performed in a test situation covering subject matter they were responsible for learning.

This diagnostic approach had several advantages over the usual reliance on the classroom for in-course learning. The feedback approach notified students that they could - and should - be responsible for their own learning. It was the student's job to identify potential problems or learning failures and to "fix" them. Second, it illustrated to students the fact that much of their performance, particularly on tests, was unconscious habitual behavior based on prior test-taking habits.

Interestingly, a significant number of the students failed to take the optional quizzes. Other students openly recognized the value of the quizzes. They quickly learned that the emphasis or culmination of their learning was not the case brief, but the analysis of hypotheticals. This analysis, in which the answer was, inevitably, "it depends," required the learning and polishing of several skills, all discussed by the graders who reviewed the quizzes.

Conclusion

The authors' venture into the on-line wilderness was at times satisfying, frustrating and insightful, but it was always a learning experience. We emerged as different teachers from when we started. We learned about new technology, how to negotiate discussion boards, chats and email, to identify lurkers, about the virtues of teamwork and about the benefits of feedback. We are ready to embark again.

8. For example, the Headline News channel broadcasts the news in short, repetitive bursts and other instant analysis programs and seminars offer "everything you need to know" in seemingly 60 seconds. Even Martha Stewart offers "fast and effective" approaches to home life tasks.

©2003 by Johnny Burris, Debra Curtis, Steve Friedland, and Billie Jo Kaufman

JURIST's Lessons from the Web series is edited by Professor Patrick Wiseman, Georgia State University College of Law.

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JURIST welcomes your comments on this column and the issues it raises...

• Thursday July 24, 2003 at 1:35 am
  I was a student in the AAMPLE online class at Nova in 2003. I feel that AAMPLE misrepresented the opportunity that we were given. The 8 week time table and the demands of the class made it almost impossible to keep up. I was told that 50% of the students pass the class, this year that # was 31% furthermore the program targeted students who were people with low LSAT scores i.e. single moms, minorities and charged us almost $2,000 plus the cost of books. I have spoken with seven students that took the course and none of them passed. We are all from different sections and professors, but no one passed. We all feel abused and robbed. Finally, but most important we can’t review our final exams which count for 100% of our grades. We can review the grading criteria but we can not see our responses. Some of us have a C average but need a 2.25 and can’t see if one of the many possible grades made a mistake that kills the dream of a life time. This program is so unfair it almost seems like a scam. We need help and the AAMPLE people at Nova are unwilling to help us. There fear of a law suit makes them hard to deal with.
  
  Robert Williams
  AAMPLE student
  Florida

• Thursday July 24, 2003 at 2:47 pm
  I am a recent participant in the AAMPLE online program at Nova Southeastern University in Ft Lauderdale FL. The program leaves little to be desired. The program is billed as an opportunity for a person with low grades or low LSAT scores to have an opportunity to prove that they can be successful in law school. In reality it is two very difficult classes’ criminal procedure and negotiable instruments given in their entirety in 8 weeks. This is a recipe for failure and discouragement of the very people that are underrepresented in the field of law in the first place. The course moves so fast with very little real time feed back from the professors. We met in chat rooms once a week for about 45 mins with the professor frustrated because of the lack of focus and the students frustrated because they couldn’t get their questions answered. Usually the professor ended the chats by saying I got to go I have another class to teach. Comments on work were routinely received after the next assignment was due. One of the main points of frustration was the many different grades that could possibly be assigned to grade the quizzes. One grader would comment on points that needed to be worked on and I would try to use the suggestions, then on my next assignment a different grader would say something else. Confusing to say the least. To top it off the final exam that counts for 100% of the final grade can not be reviewed. With the possibility of so many different graders checking the exams, a student who has spent the $2,000 tuition plus books, endured the boot camp like program That is not a true indicator of law school performance is denied the opportunity to review their work. This program, no matter how well intoned, is targeting single moms and minorities and misdirecting their money and efforts from LSAT prep courses and other real means of getting admitted into law school and directing them in to a scam that not only takes away money, time and effort but makes them believe that they can't make it in law school.
  
  Robert Williams
  Florida/Broward

• Friday March 26, 2004 at 3:25 pm
  Hello, I am signed up to take the online Aample courses in April. I live in New Jersey so picking up and moving down to Florida isnt an option at this point. Overall, I looked at the success rates and they are pretty low. Do you think the success rates correspond to the fact that the individual must be technologically savvy? How do you rate the online course compared to taking the program on campus?
  
  Hillary
  New Jersey

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